Douglas J. AmyMany of the arguments against the elongated, many-sided 12th
congressional district in North Carolina are based on its shape,
described by opponents as "odd" or "bizarre." Its shape does clearly
deviate from what some propose as the ideal district shape : a neat,
compact geographical district, preferably drawn along the lines of
political subdivisions.

An aura of tradition surrounds this ideal of compact districts. Such
districts are commonly thought of as "natural" and "desirable," and
some believe that their creation should be one of the highest goals in
districting decisions. This approach to districting often is justified
by three types of assertions: (1) that compact districts are
politically neutral; (2) that compact districts do a good job of
representing a homogeneous set of political interests; and (3) that
voters' political identities are closely tied to geographical areas.

But once we begin to examine these standard justifications for compact
districts, they do not hold up to close scrutiny. Indeed, compact
districts often may do a very poor job of representing the interests of
voters. The ultimate purpose of districting must be to enhance the
representation of interests. But there is no necessary correlation
between these interests and any particular district shape. As a result,
the compactness of a district is a flawed measure of the adequacy or
fairness of representation. In the end, the criterion of compactness
should bow to the higher value of ensuring a fair opportunity for
representation of minority voters.The Myth of "Neutral" Compact Districts

One of the main reasons that compact geographical districts are
celebrated is that they appear to be politically neutral. In
particular, the plaintiffs in the Shaw v. Hunt case against the North
Carolina districts portray compact districts as being "race-neutral" or
"color-blind." In contrast, the 12th congressional district is
portrayed as race-based and designed to further certain political
interests. But while the latter is true, the former is not. Compact
districts are not politically or racially neutral and they also
inevitably promote a certain specific set of interests.

As a matter of principle, constructing racially or politically neutral
districts is an impossible goal to achieve in single-member districts
-- even those drawn according to traditional criteria like compactness.
All compact districts will be politically biased and work to further
some interests over others.

The reason is simple: these districts are single-member districts and
as such they function to represent only the interests and views of one
part of the electorate: the majority of the voters who elect that
district's representative. The minority of voters who support the
losing candidate or candidates are thus left with no effective
representation of their interests. Although winning candidates
inevitably claim to represent everyone in a district, they in fact work
to promote policies that many people in that district strongly oppose.

The particular minorities that go unrepresented will vary from district
to district. In one district, it may be a rural minority outvoted by an
urban majority; in another it may be a Republican minority outvoted by
a Democratic majority or a black minority outvoted by a white majority.
But in all of these cases, it is the majority interest only that is
represented. In actuality, then, there are no politically "neutral"
districts that do not distort representation in some way. And this is
true irrespective of whether the districts are drawn to be compact or
not.

Given the inherent majoritarian political bias in all districts, it is
misleading to argue that an attempt to draw more compact congressional
districts in North Carolina would be a "race-neutral" effort. In
practice, this effort would favor the interests of the white majority
and work to the disadvantage of the black minority in the state.

Indeed, it is the political and racial imbalance produced by using this
approach to districting in the past that necessitated the need to draw
the oddly-shaped 12th district in the first place. So the choice in
North Carolina is not between race-based districts and race-neutral
ones; the choice is between drawing districts in which only whites are
represented (a form of race-consciousness) and drawing districts that
allow some representation for blacks as well.

The illusion of "race neutral" districts persists in part because it is
sometimes difficult to discern any racial intentions in the boundary
lines of compact geographical districts. How could a simple, square
district be biased? The problem with this belief, of course, is that it
focuses on the political intentions of the line-drawers and blithely
ignores the political effects of these districts.

Such districts clearly have racially biased effects, irrespective of
the intentions underlying the line drawing. Indeed, it can be shown
that even if compact districts were drawn with no intentions at all --
that is, were drawn by a computer in a completely random manner -- that
the effect would still be to underrepresent racial and ethnic
minorities.

As Bernard Grofman has commented, "blind districting is extremely
unlikely to give rise to proportional results." He calculated, for
instance, that with completely random districting for the U.S.
Congress, "an 11% black population minority could only expect to get
1.5% of the seats on average."

It should be understood that the fact that districts are not political
or racially neutral -- that all districts promote some interests over
others -- is an inherent and unavoidable characteristic of the
single-member district system we use to elect members of the U.S. House
of Representatives.

This system is simply not designed to represent fairly all interests in
a particular district. The basic purpose of elections is to produce a
legislature that accurately mirrors the variety of views and interests
of the electorate -- that is what democracy is all about. But
single-member districts are designed to represent only part of the
electorate: the majority of people in a given district.

As noted above, all of these single-member districts -- no matter how
they are drawn -- will inevitably leave minorities in these districts
unrepresented. Moreover, as political scientists have long known,
single-member district elections tend to produce a legislature that is
misrepresentative -- a body that over-represents majorities and
underrepresents minorities. It is this misrepresentative nature of
single-member district elections that necessitated the creation of
majority-minority districts to remedy the underrepresentation of
minorities in the U.S.

The basic unfairness and unrepresentativeness of our single-member
district election system is much of what underlies the complaints of
the plaintiffs in the Shaw case. As white citizens, they feel they will
go unrepresented in a district with a black majority. And this may be
the case. But it is a mistake to see this circumstance as an argument
against the creation of districts to ensure minority electoral
opportunity.

In reality it is an argument against the single-member district system
in general. Merely changing how the single-member district lines are
drawn would not necessarily guarantee representation for the
plaintiffs. The plaintiffs could go unrepresented in any single-member
district, even a compact one, and even in a majority white district.
For example, the plaintiffs could be Democrats in a predominantly
white, Republican district.

The potential to go unrepresented is present in every single-member
district, irrespective of how it is drawn. It should be emphasized,
however, that the danger of going unrepresented is particularly acute
for blacks where, as in North Carolina, there is persistent racially
polarized voting. Such voting patterns, which seriously cripple
electoral opportunity for blacks wherever they are in a minority, know
no geographic or geometric boundaries.

The abolition of race-based districts would not solve the problem of
the injustice of district minorities going unrepresented. It would only
ensure that blacks are one minority that consistently is submerged in
these North Carolina congressional districts.

Logically, the most effective solution is a districting approach which
eliminates the problem of minority underrepresentation in general -- an
approach that ensures all groups fair representation. The only
realistic way to do this is to abandon single-member districts and move
to a multi-member district, proportional representation election system.

Proportional representation (PR) elections are the most common form of
elections in Western democracies in large part because they guarantee
fair representation for political, racial, and ethnic minorities -- and
do so without having to create special minority-dominated districts. PR
systems use large, multi-member districts in which seats are
distributed according to the percentage of the votes received by a
particular candidate or party.

Consider, for example, a district in which ten legislative seats were
being elected. If the Republican party were to receive 50% of the vote
in the district, it would receive five of the ten seats; 30% of the
vote would win three seats.

In such a system, minorities are guaranteed fair representation no
matter where they live in the district, and no matter how the district
lines are drawn. Indeed, the drawing of these large district lines no
longer have political implications because minorities in these
districts cannot be shut out of representation. As a result,
reapportionment and redistricting in PR systems become rather mundane,
uncontroversial activities because they have such little impact on
representation.

PR would satisfy the interests of all parties in the Shaw case. PR
would ensure that blacks could have a fair opportunity to elect
representatives of their choice while at the same time it would not
require the creation of oddly-shaped or race-based districts in which
white voters were submerged.

Thus, if the plaintiffs oppose race-based districts like the 12th
congressional district, and yet also do not want to return to
traditional districts that submerge the vote of blacks in white
majorities, then the only other viable option for them is to support
the adoption of a PR system. Clearly, PR elections would be the most
simple and elegant way to ensure fair representation for everyone in
North Carolina.

While such remedies currently are not authorized by Congress, there are
no provisions in the U.S. Constitution that would prohibit the use of
PR elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. It is an
alternative remedy for minority vote dilution that deserves much more
serious consideration by the courts and all parties involved in voting
rights cases. But as long as alternative elections systems are not
available in North Carolina, the only other way to ensure fair
representation for minorities is to design districts in which they are
a majority.

It is this fact that is recognized in the Voting Rights Act and its
amendments. Without the ability to design majority-minority districts,
racial and ethnic minorities would have little or no chance of
achieving their fair share of representation in our legislative bodies.
By necessity, because minority populations are sometimes not
geographically concentrated, race-based districting will sometimes
result in oddly-shaped, non-compact districts. Especially in large
congressional districts, that may be the only way to capture enough
minority votes to create a majority in the district.

While such districts may be ugly geographically, they are beautiful
democratically -- because they work well to ensure that minority voters
have a meaningful opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
These oddly-shaped districts may offend our sense of aesthetics, but
their political effects move much closer to our core democratic ideals
and make our legislatures more representative.

The Myth of Homogeneous Interests in Compact Districts

Another main justification offered for giving compactness a high
priority in districting is the belief that compact districts represent
natural and homogeneous communities of interest based on geographical
proximity. Critics of the 12th congressional district in North Carolina
claim that its constituents have little in common (except race)
compared to the other more compact districts in that state. There are
several problems with this assertion.

First, the assumption underlying this position is that regions
themselves are somehow "regularly" shaped. This is clearly not always
true, as in North Carolina's Piedmont Crescent which stretches the
length of the state.

Second, it assumes that all the voters in a particular geographical
region share all the same interests. But this is not necessarily true.
People in a region do share certain limited interests -- such as an
interest in clean air or in particular economic development projects.
At the same time, however, the people in a region may be divided,
sometimes deeply, over competing concerns and interests.

This, unfortunately, is particularly true in racially diverse
communities and even more so when there is a history of discrimination
against racial groups. Moreover, people living in the same area often
do not have common opinions about pressing social, economic and
political problems such as abortion, taxes, welfare, affirmative
action, free trade, gun control, crime, etc. Even when a district is
almost entirely rural or urban, there are still usually distinct
political cleavages along the lines of class, race, gender, and
ideology. When regions are full of such diversity of interests and
political opinions -- as most are -- it makes little sense to insist
that geographical or geometric considerations be the primary basis for
representation.

There are reasons to believe that geographic representation may not be
as important today as it was in the past. In colonial times, many
citizens were tightly bound to their geographical regions. Indeed, it
would not be unusual for a person to grow up, raise a family, and die
within 20 miles of where he or she was born. But that is not the case
today.

Increasingly Americans are less tied to and less identified with a
particular geographic locality. According to the U.S. Census Bureau,
almost 20% of Americans move every year. 50% of the U.S. population
changed addresses between 1985 and 1989. As a result, when people
identify themselves politically, it often has less to do with their
place of residence than with their particular ideological or party
preferences.

As argued by journalist Hendrik Hertzberg, "The ties that bind are no
longer just the ties of propinquity. The communities that count are
communities of interest or belief -- communities that are at least as
likely to be national as local. Ideology, profession, class, even
racial and sexual identity -- those are the soil our roots grow in now,
as much as or more than where we live."

In other words, for the purpose of representation, it may make little
sense to group together people by geography. Instead, they should be
grouped together by the political interests by which they define
themselves. In the Supreme Court's decision in Shaw v. Reno, Justice
O'Connor questioned the legitimacy of districts that link together
people who "may have little in common with one another but the color of
their skin." But a better question to ask is whether it makes sense to
have districts that link together people who may have little in common
with one another but the place in which they live?

Again, this is not to suggest that there are not some valid regional
interests that deserve representation. The point is that these are not
the only interests or the most important interests deserving
representation; and that the primacy given to compact geographical
districting only ensures that some other interests are not fully
represented.

If the accurate and fair representation of competing interests is the
goal of elections, then these interests -- not just traditional
geographical considerations -- need to be taken into account in the
districting process. Indeed, it is this logic that underlies the
creation of majority-minority districts to ensure that minorities have
a fair chance to be represented in our legislatures.

To underscore this point, it is useful to note that other Western
democracies do not put the primary emphasis on geographical
representation that we do here in the United States. Most of these
other countries use different election systems (usually PR elections
systems) that allow for the representation of a variety of interests:
geographical, ideological, ethnic, etc. This is done by creating large,
multi-member districts, in which several members of the legislature are
elected in proportion to the vote received by particular parties.

PR systems recognize that geography is but one basis for representation
and that citizens should be allowed to group themselves together in
other ways to win representation. In the preference voting form of PR
(a form already used in the U.S.), citizens can vote for a particular
candidate because of his or her place of residence, or ideology, or
gender, or race, etc. In this way, citizens form "voluntary
constituencies" that come together on the basis of a variety of
political criteria to elect particular candidates.

In contrast, our current single-member district system forces a certain
kind of representation on voters -- it presumes that geography is what
matters most -- while PR allows voters to be represented in the ways
they feel most appropriate. This is another reason why PR has become
the most common and popular election system among Western democracies,
and another reason why it deserves more careful consideration here in
the United States.

Conclusion: Fairness Over Compactness

The ideal of compact districts persists largely as a matter of
political habit and tradition, not because it actually enhances the
process of representation. The usual justifications for emphasizing
compactness in districting do not stand up to critical scrutiny. As
shown above, such districts are not "race-neutral" and they actually do
a poor job representing all the voters in a district. Moreover,
supporters of compact districts assume that voters in such districts
have homogeneous interests and that geographical considerations play a
central role in people's political lives -- neither of which is usually
true.

As the standard justifications for the importance of compact
geographical districts are not persuasive, the creation of such
districts should not be given the highest priority in the districting
process. When necessary, the criterion of compactness must yield to the
goal of enhancing the process of representation -- in this case, the
specific goal of ensuring a fair opportunity for representation of
racial and ethnic minorities traditionally shut out of the political
process in North Carolina congressional elections.

The notion of sacrificing compactness to higher democratic goals is in
fact not a new one. For example, by insisting on the goal of equal
populations in districts, the courts have given this a higher priority
over maintaining compactness. The result has been the creation of
districts that are not particularly compact and that often violate the
traditional lines of political subdivisions.

But the courts have found those districts to be acceptable because they
further the more important goal of establishing districts of equal
population. The logic in the Shaw case is similar: the traditional
criterion of compactness should yield to the higher good of enabling
racial and ethnic minorities to have a fair chance to elect officials
to represent them.

Douglas Amy is a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College. He
wrote Real Choices, New Voices: The Case for Proportional
Representation Elections in the United States (Columbia University
Press, 1993).

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